


Secrets of the Immortal Library of the Grand Architect

by gisho



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alternate Universe: Canon Divergence, Tarvek is a library geek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-13 18:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: AU. Tarvek leaves university to take a job at the Immortal Library, and Gil tries to understand.





	1. Advanced Conservation Techniques

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet for now, possibly to be continued. I don't have a firm idea where this is going but the idea wouldn't leave me alone.

#### Advanced Conservation Techniques

It's a cool, damp day when Gil spots Tarvek Sturmvoraus for the first time in two months, walking down the Rue des Grenouilles as if he'd never left. Tarvek is wearing a long gray coat that Gil has never seen before. The latest fashion, probably. His hands are stuffed in the pockets and he's barely glancing at the buildings as he passes. Gil blinks. Tarvek turns into Morbleu Alley and vanishes.

A few seconds later Gil gets his wits together and scrambles after Tarvek.

He almost loses him in the crowd of shoppers at the other end of the alley, but then he catches sight of that absurd red hair again, and it's the work of a few seconds to grab him by the shoulder. Almost as soon as he spins around the look of surprise on Tarvek's face twists into annoyance. "Hölzfaller."

"Sturmvoraus? What happened to you?"

Tarvek rolls his eyes. "What concern is it of yours?"

That's a hard question; he can't even name the impulse that drove him after the other man, past the poor excuse of curiosity. They havn't been friends in eight years. He forges on, ignoring it. "You didn't turn up for classes! Any classes! The registrar said you'd withdrawn and Seffie said your things were gone!" For a nightclub lady that might mean a lucky marriage, but Tarvek was the sort of person lucky marriages were made _to_.

"I repeat: what concern is it of yours?" Tarvek pushes his glasses up his nose. They're new glasses, too, silver-framed. "Painful though it must be not to have anyone to crib from in Professor Balliard's class."

Gil bristles. "Believe it or not, I don't actually want you dead."

"Fine. Here I am, not dead." Tarvek spreads his hands. "And I'm actually in the middle of something, so if you don't mind -"

If Tarvek minded he'd have slipped away already. "Let me buy you a coffee," Gil blurts out. 

Stupid, stupid, it's not as if Tarvek can't afford good coffee himself. But for some reason the offer makes him go still.

L'Engrenage Doré serves overpriced coffee, but it's not _bad_ coffee and Gil doesn't want to risk dragging Tarvek more than two blocks. Tarvek goes willingly enough, stormy though his expression is. Not until the waitress has been and gone and Gil ordered for both of them does he stop seething long enough to say, "What do you want from me?"

"An explanation would be nice. I'm tired of people asking me what happened to you. I don't know why they think I'd know." Alright, they were in a lot of the same investigative societies, and he'd saved Tarvek from getting eaten by the lagomorph that one time, and there had been the mess with the Holy Brotherhood of Haberdashers, and - he can see why people got the wrong impression. What little time they spent together tended to be loud. Still. "You'd think they would ask your actual relatives."

"No, that's quite astute of them, I wouldn't tell my relatives if it was going to be dark tonight." Tarvek rolls his eyes. 

"If you were actually hiding, you wouldn't be wandering around the streets of Paris in your own hair."

"I'm not hiding." He smirks. "I got a job."

"A job?"

"Yes. One of those hideously common setups beneath the dignity of an aristocrat, you know, where you do things for people and then they give you money? Nothing you'd lower yourself to." Tarvek is smirking; Gil bristles automatically. "It turns out that saving their hydrodynamology collection collection from a rampaging moron quite endears you to the Incorruptible Library."

That had been the _mushroom breeders'_ fault, not his, even if his library card had gotten revoked for it, but Gil refuses to rise to the bait. "And you had to quit university for that?"

"Why wait?"

If 'to finish university' isn't sufficient answer to that Gil's not sure what would be. He slumps in his chair. "You could have told people where you were going."

"I could have," Tarvek allows, "but then I would have had to sit through Grandfather telling me how stupid I was being. It's going to be unpleasant enough when my father finds out. It might, if I've miscalculated, be enough to pry him out of the lab to come tell me in person just how deep through the mud I'm dragging the family name." His nose wrinkles in disgust, and he pushes his glasses up his nose.

Gil is spared having to answer that right away by the arrival of their coffee, and he drags it out with a very long first drink, but eventually he has to put down the cup. Tarvek hasn't touched his own mug yet. He's glaring at it like he's inspecting it for defects. 

He has to say something. Gil ventures, "Is there anyone you want me to tell now?"

"Where I went?"

"Well, word's going to get around that you're not dead." He waves around them in a half-hearted attempt to indicate the other customers and the waiters and the busy street they walked here on. 

It gets a twitch, like Tarvek is trying not to smile. "I leave it entirely up to you to spin the rumour mill or not. Colette knows already, and no one else matters."

"Whatever happened to not trusting me as far as far as a mushroom can jump?"

"Come on, Holzfäller. Some things even you can't mess up." Tarvek smirks as he finally picks up his coffee.

They drink in silence for a while while Gil tries to figure out his next move. There's no one else he recognizes in the café right now, it's not exactly a student - scratch that, Miss Hartleford from his Polypyrotechnics seminar just walked in. It could be worse. Tarvek never had much interest in explosives. Maybe she won't even notice they're here. She looks around and gives Gil a friendly little wave, but she doesn't look surprised or rush over to ask questions, just sits down beside the window without coming over to say hello. Gil waves back and hopes he doesn't look like he has anything to hide. Just here for a drink with a - classmate. Former classmate. It occurs to Gil that he's late for class, but it's just a seminar, they don't need him.

"So," he says, because he has to say something. "What exactly are you doing for the library?" It would be nice if the window caved in around now. He'd heard rumours that Othar Trygvassen was back in town. 

Of course, if Othar Trygvassen was really in town, he'd have found out the first day.

"Right now? Conservation department," Tarvek says, with the kind of bland, flat tone that carefully has no audible smugness whatsoever. 

What exactly does he have to be smug about? "Book repair? That was worth leaving the Academy for?"

"Not entirely." Tarvek's nose wrinkles. "For example, right now I'm overhauling the guard clanks' rapid-response controllers, to make sure that no one can ever repeat your little trick with the string-theory macrame collection. Do you know how long it took to track them all down after that? You're almost as much of a menace as Tweedle."

"Only almost?" It's a weak joke, but it's the best he can come up with.

"You," Tarvek informs Gil, "don't keep Sparkhounds." There has to be a story there and Gil's not entirely sure he wants to hear it. He takes a gulp of coffee. Tarvek goes on, sounding quite cheerful, "You're lucky the Curator Filimon is so forgiving. I would have argued for revoking your card permanently."

And that mess wasn't even his first strike. Gil finds himself wincing involuntarily at the memory. "Are you sure you're not just vengeful?"

Tarvek rolls his eyes. "Holzfäller, you have _no idea_ how valuable books are, do you?"

"Apparently not." It shouldn't bother him to be snapped at. Tarvek thinks everyone else and especially Gil is an idiot, despite somehow ending up needing to be rescued from some madman trying to take over Paris almost as often as poor Zola was. Tarvek finds him utterly infuriating. It suddenly occurs to Gil that he has an excellent, obvious way of getting under Tarvek's skin, and he grins. "But, you know, my ban expires at the end of February. Two weeks. Why don't I come down and visit you and you can explain in detail?"

"Visit?" That gets just the horrified look he was hoping for, and Tarvek clutching at his coffee cup with the air of an aristocratic lady clutching her pearls.

"Sure! I need to tell everyone how you're doing, don't I?" 

"It's really not necessary," Tarvek mutters, eyes still blown wide from, apparently, the horrible prospect of having to offer Gil a drink and be hospitable. He rallies with, "If they really cared they'd track me down in person. I notice _you_ didn't bother."

"Believe it or not, Sturmvoraus, I have other things to worry about." Gil can't help the growl it comes out as. "Did you know there was an infestation of animate fungi in the East Catacombs last week?"

"Was?"

"I burned them out."

"And so kept the Master of Paris's undue good opinion. Congratulations." Tarvek has gone from clutching his coffee like an outraged debutante to cradling it and glaring over the top, like - well, very much like the Master of Paris, if Gil is being honest with himself, with the same air of mute despair at how stupid and thoughtless the rest of the world is. It's a feeling Gil can sympathize with, not that he'd ever admit it. "Tell me something, Holzfäller," Tarvek goes on, voice suddenly low and serious. "When was the last time in your life you did something just because you wanted to, because you couldn't imagine not doing it, no matter what anyone else expected of you?"

Gil opens his mouth. Then he closes it, because he doesn't know how to answer that. Not without giving anything away. It takes a few breaths before he gets enough grip on himself to say, "You don't care. You've never cared."

"You should." Tarvek takes a long drink, then slams down his empty mug with a final-sounding click. "And now I really do have to be going. People to see, parts shipments to intercept, you know how it is. Give my best wishes to Colette." He's smiling as he gets up, bland and serene. 

"Give them yourself," Gil tries to tell him. "You know her address."

But Tarvek is already striding gracefully toward the door, improbably plain gray coat vanishing as a waiter and two customers in pink feathered hats step into Gil's line of sight, and Gil can only settle back into his chair and seethe. He glances desperately around the cafe. Miss Hartleford from his Polypyrotechnics seminar has a cup and a gingerbread roll and a notebook out. The two new customers are gesturing with their menus like they're having a delightful argument. A tall man in a taller stovepipe hat is ranting at a tiny woman in furs. By the kitchen an old lady is reading the latest Trelawney Thorpe novel. None of them need him for anything, and what Gil wants right now, just for himself, is to throw some money on the table and run out after Tarvek and shake him until he gets a better reason for dropping out of the Academy without a word, because if there's one thing he knows about the weasel, it's that he always has a good reason, even for the things that look idiotic. 

As if Tarvek would admit anything.

Gil picks up his coffeecup and takes a long drink. It's already going cold.

\--


	2. Ancient History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I did continue it. No promises if/when there will be a chapter 3, but the idea continue to intruige me.

#### Ancient History

The first time Gil's library card was revoked - and Tarvek hated that _that_ was how his brain chose to index a point of great significance in his life for reasons that had nothing to do with Gil, but brains are less reliable about subject headings than card catalogues are - it took two days of bed rest before Tarvek recovered from the smoke inhalation. It was on the third morning, over a leisurely breakfast with Melissa and Jon, that he began to take the job offer seriously. 

"Of course we meant it," Jon said to him, blinking over his coffee with the sort of guileless expression usually reserved for small children. Tarvek still wasn't used to dealing with someone who so obviously meant every word he said. "You love books, that's the most important thing."

"Oh yes."

"Absolutely."

"But," Melissa went on, while Tarvek looked down at his half-eaten blintz because looking back and forth between them was making him dizzy, "we were also very impressed with how you dealt with the chemical spill."

"Very sensibly."

"Amazingly so, for a Spark. We've had incidents." Melissa's face fell. "Just last summer we lost poor Doctor Pfen-"

" _We don't talk about Pfenigberg_ ," Jon interrupted darkly, and stabbed his fork into his blintz so hard it was a wonder the plate didn't crack. The jam did splash.

Melissa pressed a hand to her temple. "Fine. But the fact remains that half the reshelver clanks try to file Vogel's complete _Quasi-Real Possibilities of Possible Reality_ in the cookbook section, and _nobody knows why_."

Tarvek had to ask, "Were they made with polyphasic brains?"

It only took a few questions before the Soleras were blinking in incomprehension. Well, they weren't mechanics. After breakfast they all went to find the senior shelvers and attack the problem more directly. But as fascinating as that had been, it was the breakfast that Tarvek remembered, in a warm room made smaller by the piles of books and too many overstuffed chairs, and how his hosts had kept touching each other, casual pats on the shoulder or brushes of the hand as they snatched bites from each other's plates. Tarvek was sentimental enough to enjoy watching them.

He came home to Violetta fuming at him for sending her ahead with his parcels and coming back three days late. She finally gave up when _brainless troglodyte_ didn't get a flinch, waving her hand in his face. "Hey! Are you even listening?"

"Why bother? You only average one new insult per rant," he said. Violetta would be a problem. He needed her safe and free and loyal, at least for what he was currently calling Plans A, B, D, and F. Nothing below J, but if he got that far down the list Sturmhalten would probably be in flames anyway.

The Immortal Library hadn't been in his plans. Time to revise them.

"You sure you're okay?" He must have gotten distracted, because Violetta was actually looking concerned, a mood she would only admit to when they were alone in his bedroom. "Do I need to hide the solvents?"

Tarvek let himself sneer a little. "Not from _me_."

When Violetta had vanished in a huff - maybe even left the room, but he was in no mood to listen well enough to check - Tarvek retrieved the notebook from the hidden compartment under his desk drawer, and began to sketch gears. 

\--

His father would be furious, of course. His father expected Tarvek to play the perfect Storm King in readiness for his plan to resurrect his goddess and rule beside her. Watching his favorite pawn run off somewhere he couldn't reach - it would make him rant and rave and maybe he would rant enough to Vrin that she'd work out just what kind of sacrifice Wilhelm had meant to make to his beloved Lucrezia. She might not care for Tarvek, but she didn't care for Wilhelm either. It was at least possible she'd think that kind of immortality should be reserved for the Goddess alone. Nothing Tarvek could depend on. Something he could hope for. 

As for Anevka, she knew how to play the game. _Let me go to Paris and I'll try to talk sense into my brother,_ she could say. Do it while their father was angry and distracted enough, and he'd agree. Come to Paris, and he couldn't make her leave. It could work. It didn't count as abandoning his sister, if Tarvek made sure there was a way for her to follow. 

And - it was past time for him to build an independant powerbase. The Library, the Incorruptible Republic, _Van Rijn's library_ , was the perfect place to lay a foundation. Of course they'd side with one of their own, the more so since Tweedle had _no_ idea of the _importance_ of the Library. He thought of them as a public utility, helpful servants, the same way he thought of plumbers. Someday Violetta would actually let loose the amphibian thing from the Sturmhalten drains she'd been keeping in a tank and underfeeding since summer, right into Tweedle's bathtub, and then he'd learn to appreciate plumbers. The odds were he'd never have a proper appreciation of librarians; they were the sacred guardians of knowledge and civilization would not _exist_ without them, although without plumbers it might stumble cholerically on. 

They wanted Tarvek to join them. They thought he'd be an asset to the cause, for reasons that had nothing to do with his name or his bloodline, and that made Tarvek's heart beat faster and a warm feeling bubble up in his chest every time he thought of it. He firmly inscribed the final edge of a gearspoke in the winding design he was sketching, then scribbled in, in mirror-writing so sketchy it could pass for scribbled crosshatching, _Tweedle will never suspect_.

What Grandmother would think was harder to predict. She wasn't stupid; she would know Tarvek wasn't actually taking himself out of the game. _Terebithia might,_ he crosshatched the edge of a belt, and what should it be driving? Would she keep silent? Write him off and try to turn to Order of Jove against him? 

Most likely she would do as she always did, and keep her options open. Even if she'd decided to throw her weight behind Tweedle, Lady Terebithia would never let her favorite get soft. 

The Smoke Knights resented his father, and resented Lady Vrin, and would support anyone who could make sure no more of them were wasped. Tarvek couldn't promise that, yet, but he was at least willing to try. Could he leverage that into anything useful? Nothing he couldn't from overground Paris. Strike that out of his balance. The rest of the Order he'd have to take one by one. It would take years of work. He'd start with Van Bulen, who was a romantic, who would be sincerely moved by the notion of Tarvek working with Van Rijn's library. Carrying on Van Rijn's legacy.

It shouldn't be a consideration that the Immortal Library might know where the Muses were. Most of Europa wasn't so romantic as to care about the endorsement of the Muses. 

Tarvek kept sketching. It was genuinely absent-minded now, something to make Violetta think he was off on a flight of fancy while most of his thoughts were dead serious. 

He'd almost covered the page in gears, an improbable mechanism that sent all its forces off the edge of the page, before his mind was made up.

Tarvek dramatically ripped the page from his notebook, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it in the fire. 

\--

Knowing what he meant to do didn't mean he could do it right away. He had groundwork to lay. He arranged to spend all next Friday afternoon in the library tracking down primary sources for his Historical Analysis essay, discover a need for a book he'd last seen at the bottom of a pile in the Soleras' parlour, and of _course_ they suggested he stay for dinner. It couldn't be called subtle. 

"Hm?" Jon said, when he asked a question that actually was subtle, thrown out so casually. "No, of course we don't _require_ a degree."

Melissa added, "What would be the point? We do better training librarians on the job ourselves than any university manages. Even the British Library admits that, you know. Some relevant degree from Oxford and they start you two ranks up. Endorsement from the Immortal Library, three."

"I thought you and the British Library were bitter enemies," Tarvek said, blinking. He did need to change the subject, but he was sincerely curious now.

That got a shrug from Jon as he reached for the salt cellar. "That's no reason not to keep up professional courtesies. Mind you," he added, brows knitting, "if they have the audacity to ask for their Codex Fulvinarium back again after what they did to our Meton, we're sending them a letterbomb."

Tarvek couldn't help but sigh; he'd heard the whole sordid story from Curator Philimon. "I'm really not sure that will help."

"It will have to do. We can't exactly get a raiding clowder to Londinium."

He conceded the point with a wave of his hand, and conversation drifted on to the topic of rare books, and what unique codices were _probably_ extant only in the Castle Heterodyne library. 

Not until mid-December were all the pieces in place. He got the letter he'd been expecting with the evening mail, just before one of Grandmother's parties, which he would have been looking forward to if both Leopold and Xantippus hadn't been invited. The look on his face must have been something very strange, because after he'd been staring into the distance for a few seconds she swung into view long enough to snatch it away, and was perched atop the wardrobe a moment later, kicking her legs like a small child as she read out, " _We are pleased to -_ Tarvek? What the heck?"

"Give that _back_ ," he snapped, as if it would help. It didn't. "It's called a _job offer_ , Violetta, we can't _all_ be parasites on the family fortune."

She ignored the implied dig in favor of stuffing her knuckles in her mouth to keep from laughing. It didn't entirely work. "You can't even - make your own - coffee," she managed, between gasps.

She'd never _seen_ him make his own coffee, because she was banned from his lab after the Trioxycycline Incident. Not eating or drinking or _licking anything_ in the lab was the most elementary of safety principles, and everyone knew any child of Aaronev Wilhelm's would know the principle, and if Tarvek violated it in genuine privacy after careful consideration, it was no one's business but his own. Now wasn't the time to mention it. "How lucky for me there are library pages, then," he said instead.

"Of course you're going go right on being a useless clod even when you're working." Violetta rolled her eyes.

If he'd been his grandmother Tarvek would have slapped her for that, but that was one of her habits he didn't care to emulate. He settled for a menacing glower. "Well, unless you're planning on coming with me, there's nothing else do be done. Surely not even _you_ would expect me to work without coffee."

Violetta opened her mouth. Went stil. Gave a theatrical moan of despair. "I have to go with you, don't I."

"Not necessarily."

"If you blow yourself up Grandmother will feed me to the Knights of the Hunt."

"Technically you're still in training."

"How am I supposed to sneak into the Library? Everyone says their cats are impossible."

"You don't sneak," Tarvek offered. "You walk up to Curator Philimon's desk and say you're my friend and you want a job. They're always looking for library pages." He smirks. "You might even get to make my coffee."

He wasn't surprised when Violetta reappeared on the floor without apparently having passed through the intervening space, and backhanded him with the acceptance letter. He yelped anyway, and tried futilely to shield himself with his forearms as she followed up with both fists. "You selfish idiot! You just go haring off on adventures and never think things through! I had to rescue you from that idiot with the giant caterpillars! And sneak you off the ship when your pirate doxy got tired of you! _I hate you!_ "

"Fine," Tarvek said, when she seemed to be done and he could lower his arms. "Go beg Grandma for a transfer."

"How mad _are_ you? She'd stick me with Seffie. I'll go tell the maids to pack."

"You'll do no such thing," Tarvek said, and crossed his arms and tried to look down his nose at her, which would have been easier if he hadn't been sitting on the bed while she was standing up. "You'll wait until New Year's and then we'll leave in the middle of the night while everyone else is drunk. I'm not listening to Grandfather try to talk me out of this."

"It'd be hilarious," Violetta said, and threw the crumpled-up letter at him. But she didn't actually protest.

\--

The rest was details. He sent his most irreplaceable lab equipment ahead by post, signed up for classes he would never take and got the withdraw letters ready to drop off on the way out, and sent Violetta around to a few tailors who specialized in more somber clothing than the useless fop he pretended to be would ever wear. Taking a job at the Immortal Library was hardly joining a monastery, but when word got out Tarvek wanted that to be the image that sprung to people's minds. It would be years before all his pieces were in place.

On the penultimate day of the year, Tarvek showed up at a meeting of the Civic Enlightenment and Single Malt Scotch Society, and debated electrotension levels as if nothing was wrong. Holzfäller dragged most of the Society off through the secret passage afterwards, since apparently the cabaret next door had started selling something called a Luminiferous Sugar Shock and he wanted their opinions. Tarvek was left behind to fume at the three other members who apparently valued their livers. "Someone's going to spike Holzfäller's drink with cyanide someday and he won't even notice," he muttered.

Miss Phoenicia blinked at him. "Why not?"

"Because he has no taste."

He hadn't meant it as a joke, just an observation on the sort of person who would drink something called a Luminiferous Sugar Shock, but Phoenicia laughed anyway. "Maybe that's the secret ingredient. You know, I think I will go try the Sugar Shock, I got this lovely glass chromatograph for Yule and I've just been running _lab specimens_ on it for five days. Maybe it needs a challenge."

"Fine," Tarvek said. "On your own tongue be it." He had a more interesting date to keep, anyway.

\--

Colette let him in through the window. It spared difficult questions, and there were enough decorative crenellations on the Valois family mansion, even a clumsy fool like him could get to Colette's fifth-story window without too much trouble. Never mind how he got through the fence. "You're looking lovely tonight," he told Colette with a grin, and produced a bag of chocolate mimmoths from his coat.

She was in green satin pyjamas. She rolled her eyes, but there was a twinkle in them. "And you look like you climbed through a hedge."

"I did. Nothing can keep me from your side, darling." It was delightful to flirt with Colette; Tarvek knew she had no interest whatsoever in men, so he could go as far over the top as his wit allowed. But he had a serious reason to be here. He settled against her vanity and crossed his arms, while she unwrapped a mimmoth. "But it might be a little more difficult from now on."

"Does this have something to do with all those overnight visits to the library?" Colette raised an eyebrow. 

Well, he shouldn't be surprised _Colette_ found out. A little flattered, even; she must have been using the city surveillance. "Indeed it does," he admitted. "I'm joining them."

Colette bit off the mimmoth's head. She always ate them like that, like a cat that didn't want to play. "Of course you are," she said, face twisting into a scowl. "Finally got tired of your family?"

"I've been tired of my family for years," Tarvek admitted, and looked at the floor. He could say that here; Colette knew how to keep a secret. "It's the way they keep trying to poison me. Rather gets in the way of enjoying a nice cup of coffee. No, this was just the first chance to leave that seemed worth taking. Colette, they're going to let me redesign their perimeter guards," he told her, and maybe that was a little too enthusiastic and eager but dammit, clanks like those were worth getting enthusiastic over. "They said they need a completely new threat-detection algorithm."

"I don't suppose you would build in an override for Parisian gendarmes?" She popped the rest of the mimmoth in her mouth whole, like a bonbon.

Tarvek could only shake his head and smile. "What kind of way would that be to treat my new patrons?"

"A very useful one for your old friends," Colette told him, but she held out the bag of mimmoths anyway. Tarvek waved it off - he didn't care for the crunch - and Colette stuck her hand back in with an all-the-more-for-me shrug. "You know my father will be annoyed with you."

"Annoyed enough to drop a girder on me next time I come to the surface?"

"Not quite that annoyed."

"Then I'll just have to live with it," Tarvek told her. "I was never _his_ anyway."

\--

Violetta was washing her hands in his sink, when he finally got home. There was green slime splashed over most of it and an unpleasant smell of decaying plants. It was two in the morning. Tarvek took a deep breath and carefully didn't slap her. "What," he hissed, "are you doing in here?"

"Sorry," Violetta said without looking up. She didn't sound particularly sorry. "The thing in the jar sort of ... splashed." 

Of course it did. Tarvek grabbed the bottle of orange hair oil he never used, briefly considered the merits of dumping it all over the room as if they'd had a fight, then decided the housemaids didn't deserve that given what they'd have to deal with tomorrow and settled for pouring it right over Violetta's hands instead. She yelped. "There," he said mercilessly, "that should help with the smell. Please tell me the thing is now _contained_ in Tweedle's bathtub."

"I stopped up the drain, yeah."

"Good. I'm going to bed. Wake me up at eleven, if the screaming hasn't started by then."

"Wake you at eleven." Violetta rolled her eyes. "You're so spoiled. You're going to get fired in a week."

"Maybe I'll build an alarm clock. One that doesn't _insult me._ "

"Yeah, yeah, Your Majesty. I hope you don't expect me to pack your underwear."

"Don't call me that," he snapped. He didn't add _yet._

But Violetta knew what he meant. She could do the same calculations Tarvek had; a few weeks in the Library and she'd see why he was so determined to throw in with them. Why play petty games with his family when he could find a different power base and circumvent them completely? This was the best thing, really. They wouldn't miss Grandma's house.

He was just glad Violetta had remembered the thing in the jar tonight. It would have been a pity to miss Tweedle's horrified face.

\--


End file.
